Quote Originally Posted by Lian Li Tech View Post
Ahh, mATX meant to add that in. When compared, which features in the Arc Mini that you find most lacking in the PC-A04. Water cooling? Cable management?
There are some differences, one of the biggest being the "no compromise" in the Arc Mini (my brother has one). As of now, there is no mATX tower from Lian Li that has this capabilites (together):

a) Support for whatever high-end heatsink you may use.
b) Support for watercooling units (custom or OEM, doesn't matter) with at least 2 x 120 rad support.
c) Support for all the above without super tight tolerances that make buying a unit a risk in case something doesn't snap in.

For instance:



Why? The V600F is probably THE most gorgeous tower mATX case ever released (imo)... but it ain't practical if you want to build a high-power computer because:

a) It lacks a rear fan (which makes no sense to me from a design standpoint).
b) You can't put any decent heatsink in there (150mm max height... and if you do find a tower heatsink with that height, good look fitting your ram into the mobo).
c) I doubt you can even put a watercooling OEM unit with a 120mm rad...

Also, because there is no rear fan it will be hard to have the system properly cooled if you plan to put some decent vga's in there.

Really, I LOVE the design of the case, its simply stunning... but trading aesthetics for performance is something that shouldn't be needed.

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Instead, lets look at the Arc Mini:

a) No heatsink tower compromise (well, if you plan to put a super huge one, then yes, but with 165mm you can put almost whatever you want).
b) As many fans as you'd want to.
c) The case is just a "tad" bigger than your V600F.

All in all, the V600F trumps the Arc Mini in terms of beauty and quality... but the latter is much more useful when building a computer and thus the value of the V600F decreases.

IMO, whats lacking from Lian Li this days is to put more thought into designing products... because some design choices clearly means that the design group isn't even up to date to the nowadays needs, because towers such as the A04 or the V600F have obvious mistakes that anybody who has ever built a computer wouldn't do.

So, just test your designs with modern hardware:

-Can we put a high-end computer in there?
-Can such high-end hardware work fine with the airflow designed?
-Can we use up-to-date parts with this case?

For instance, allowing builds to put a cooler with height up to 150mm is a poor choice design... you'd rather make the case smaller because from 120mm to 150mm the choices aren't very different... when from 150mm to 170mm they are, and a lot.

Its the only thing Lian Li is lacking this days: the quality is unparalleled (well, lets not speak about Abee cases and the like, hehe), but they are far behind in terms of usability, things that Silverstone is very up to date (with products such as the TJ08-E, which is the perfect form factor as everything you need fits, but there is no wasted space anywhere. A true example of a job well done... also, the SG09 is a very nice example of a form factor although, IMO, the front is ugly (something that can be changed easily).